Dr. Amber Engelson

Professor, English

Amber Engelson
Email
Phone
(413) 662-5489
Office
60 Porter St. Rm 210

Education

Ph.D., University of Massachusetts Amherst

M.A., University of Massachusetts Amherst

A.B., Occidental College

Courses Taught

ENGL 490: Senior Seminar: Counterstory & Critical Imagination

ENGL 331: The Story of English

ENGL 308: Writing Associate Workshop

ENGL 202: The Personal Essay

ENGL 150: College Writing 

 

Research/Creative Interests

My research explores the ways writers in diverse global contexts transform written English in their efforts to describe and change their worlds. Though my published research focuses specifically on Indonesian literacy practices, I am convinced that all writers transform English as they seek to understand and write the world, whether they write from within U.S. borders or beyond. The courses I teach, from “First-year Writing” to “The Story of English,” to “Writing Women,” are firmly grounded in the belief that the local is global and that we, as global citizens, must learn to negotiate diverse voices and audiences as we seek to re-write our world.

Research Specialties: Global Literacies; Feminist Rhetorics; Critical Pedagogies; Writing Across the Curriculum; Writing Center Theory.

Publications

Engelson, Amber. The Hands of God at Work: Islamic Gender Justice through Translingual Praxis. CCCC Studies in Writing and Rhetoric, 2024. 

Engelson, Amber. “‘I Have No Mother Tongue”: (Re)Conceptualizing Rhetorical Voice in Indonesia.” The Routledge Handbook of Comparative World Rhetorics: Studies in the History, Application, and Teaching of Rhetoric Beyond Traditional Greco-Roman Contexts. Ed. Keith Lloyd. July 2020.

Engelson, Amber. “‘Resources are Power’: Writing Across the Global Information Divide.” Thinking Globally, Composing Locally: Rethinking Online Writing in the Age of the Global Internet. Eds. Rich Rice and Kirk St. Amant. Colorado: University of Colorado Press, May 2018.

Engelson, Amber. “‘To Whom Do We Have Students Write?’: Exploring Rhetorical Agency and Translanguaging in an Indonesian Graduate Writing Classroom.Literacy in Composition Studies: April 2018.

Engelson, Amber. “‘The Hands of God at Work’: Negotiating Between Western and Religious Sponsorship in Indonesia.” College English 76.4 (March 2014): 292-314.

Recent Conference Presentations

“Listening for Abundance: Towards a Critical Pedagogy that Dwells in Excess”. Conference on College Composition and Communication. Spokane, WA. April 2024.

“‘The Essence, the Soul, is Still Water’: Metaphors for Listening Past Colonialist Dualities and Towards Interrelationality.” Feminisms and Rhetorics Conference. Spelman College, Atlanta. Oct. 2023.

“‘Mubadalah is In-Between’: Performing Translingual Praxis, Islamic Gender Justice and Decolonial Meaning-Making in Indonesia.” Sponsored Panel: Rhetoric and Religious Traditions Standing Group. Conference on College Composition and Communication. Chicago, IL. Feb. 2022.

“‘Social Justice is Not About Language; It’s About Humanity’: Translanguaging to Cultivate One’s Audiences.” International Researchers Consortium Workshop. Conference on College Composition and Communication. March, 2021.

“Writing with God: Translanguaging Towards Social Justice in Indonesia.” International Researchers Consortium Workshop. Conference on College Composition and Communication. March, 2020. 

“From Equitable Access to Cosmopolitan Engagement: What U.S.-based Scholars Might Learn from Indonesian Scholars.” Writing Education Across Borders International Conference, Pennsylvania State University, Oct. 2019.

“Translanguaging to Serve: Towards Islamic Feminist Social Justice in Indonesia.” Rhetoric and Religion in the 21st Century: Possibilities, Publics, Partnerships. University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, Oct. 2018.

“Religion Matters: Translanguaging Towards Muslim-Feminist Ideals in Indonesia.” Thomas R. Watson Conference: Making Future Matters. Oct., 2018.

“‘Social Justice is Not About Language; It’s About Humanity’: Cosmopolitan Translanguaging in Indonesia.” Conference on College Composition and Communication. Kansas City, MO, 2018.

“Cultivating (Her)Story: Teaching Feminist Archival Research and the Politics of Imagining.” Conference on College Composition and Communication. Portland, OR, 2017.

“‘I’ll Assimilate…For Now’: Translingual Agency and the Spaces in Between.” Thomas R. Watson Conference. Mobility Work in Composition: Translation, Migration, Transformation. Louisville, KY 2016.

“Listening Translingually: Towards a Graduate-level Pedagogy of Global Responsivity.” Thomas R. Watson Conference.  Responsivity: Defining, Encouraging, Enacting, Louisville, KY 2014.

“Opening Up the First-Year Research Project: Re-framing Academic Inquiry as a Local-Global, Public Endeavor.” Conference on College Composition and Communication, Indianapolis, IN 2014.